The 20 greatest movies about game shows

Game shows were some of the first and most popular shows at the dawn of television. One of them also created one of the first TV controversies.

Charles Van Doren became a household name in the 1950s when his first appearance on the quiz show Twenty-One turned into six straight weeks of wins and $49,500 in prize money. Following a Congressional investigation, Van Doren admitted that the show’s producers gave him the questions and answers in advance. Director Robert Redford retells the story from the point of view of Van Doren, played by Ralph Fiennes, and a district attorney prosecutor, played by Rob Morrow, and the relationship between them. The story isn’t just about the lies companies and broadcasters foisted on the public. It’s about the chances people take to make their dreams happen and the lies we tell ourselves when they unravel.

The first film based on the works of Richard Bachman (the pen name of horror legend Stephen King) tells the story of a game show set in the distant future with deadly consequences.

The Running Man is the top TV show of a dystopian future where convicted criminals compete in an American Gladiators -esque game of life or death. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays an Army pilot wrongly accused of mass murder who decides to take his chances and win his freedom on the deadly game show hosted by the conniving Damon Killian, played by game show legend Richard Dawson. This movie probably has more classic Schwarzenegger kill lines than anything at this point in his film career. It’s also got some great performances by sports legends Jim Brown and Jesse “The Body” Ventura, and it’s eerily prescient in this age of forced reality television.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a global quiz show phenomenon because it can create tense, palpable drama without complicated set changes or a huge cast of actors. It’s also one of the most challenging game shows in history.

Director Danny Boyle, the filmmaker behind visionary movies like Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, saw the potential that Millionaire could create as the MacGuffin of a multilayered story of a young man named Jamal, played by Dev Patel, who gets a chance to go for the grand prize. When he wins, he’s accused of cheating. The movie takes the audience on a journey through the slums of India, showing how Jamal gained the knowledge of every question on his way to the $1 million. You can’t help but root for Jamal as the film’s underdog, who’s under tremendous pressure from all sides, including a couple you didn’t see coming to clear his name and win the top prize. It’s also a colorful, vibrant musical experience by injecting the cinematography with some classic Bollywood sights and sounds.

Does it feel like reality television is just one step away from turning into a real-life death match? You’re not the first person to feel that way. That’s what prompted TV executive turned director Daniel Minahan to make this super black dark comedy. 

The Contenders is a reality show in which six randomly chosen people and one returning champion are forced to compete by literally killing their competition. The show’s two-time champion is a pregnant woman named Dawn, played by Brooke Smith. The movie plays out as if you’re watching a full, feature-length episode of this grisly game show with Will Arnett as the show’s super serious host. She’s pitted against an 18-year-old girl, a blue-collar father of two, an elderly retired man, a 57-year-old ER nurse, and an old lover dying of testicular cancer. The tone and style of this movie dare you to laugh at some of its darkest moments in the same way reality TV gives you permission to enjoy the low points of another person’s life.

This more recent gorefest follows a similar modus operandi as Series 7: The Contenders but brings it into our age of digital spectacle.

Eight people are taken to an undisclosed location to compete in what they think is a Big Brother-esque reality show, but it turns out to be a torture game show broadcast on the Internet. The main sadist is a wealthy sociopath named Nero Alexander, played by Jerome Velinsky, who appears to the contestants and his online viewers on screen as a pixelated panda who has some creative and cruel games for his players to compete in when the viewers choose them for permanent elimination. Meanwhile, federal authorities are trying to track down the broadcast before the viewer and the body count gets too high.

This blockbuster teen drama may be best remembered for the action, but the central plot centers around a deadly game show in which the only prize that matters is survival.

The book and film series once again borrow from the grisly nature of reality TV and puts it in a dystopian future where people are starving. The only way out of poverty is to compete as a tribute in a televised battle royale to the death. The names are chosen at random, and when Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence in a career-defining performance, learns that her younger sister has been selected to compete, she volunteers to take her place. The games take place in a remote wooded area filled with cameras, and the action is commentated on reality show style by the glib Caesar Flickerman, played by Stanley Tucci. The plotlines offer a new way to tell a familiar tale as Katniss tries to weave her way into the aristocracy while simultaneously dismantling it.

This indie film produced by Tom Hanks’ Playtone film company is a romantic comedy where a university knowledge quiz show serves as the McGuffin for its main character until, of course, love gets in the way. It’s got a huge cast of future superstars like James McAvoy, Alive Eve, James Corden, Dominic Cooper, and Benedict Cumberbatch, and a clever take on a genre that started to get tired around the same time it was released.

This grandfather of the modern dramedy isn’t remembered for being a game show film in the strictest sense of the term, but a key point in the plot involves one that helps shape the film’s central character. A simple man named Melvin Dummar, played by Paul Le Mat, reluctantly picks up a stranded hitchhiker named Howard, played by Jason Robards, and agrees to give him a ride into Las Vegas. The ride between that moment and the drop-off point is kind of a My Dinner With Andre-esque conversation exploration as the two slowly develop an understanding and friendship because they both feel isolated. Along the way, we see other sides of Melvin’s life, including his wife, played by Mary Steenburgen, who won an Oscar for her performance, winning big on a game show called Easy Street — a $10 talent showcase crammed into a Let’s Make a Deal-style show. She wins big but poor Melvin gets run over in the process, which turns out to be one of a series of setbacks in a life where he doesn’t ask for much.  

Game show maven Chuck Barris has a feverish imagination and infectious energy made for television, but even the wide reach of the powerful TV signal has limits. It turns out that shows like The Dating Game and The Gong Show were just a warmup for the showmanship Barris was willing to go. In 1984, Barris wrote an autobiography chronicling his life developing game shows for television and the lessons he learned along the way. Oh, and he also detailed how, at the same time, he carved out a career in TV and worked for the CIA as an off-the-books assassin. Sam Rockwell played Barris in director George Clooney’s cinematic reimagining of Barris’ off-the-wall book penned by the brilliant surrealist screenwriter Charlie Kaufman that mixes the wacky life of a bottom barrel game show maker and the hidden truths of the life behind it.

One of the most brazen cheaters in game show history tried to put one over one of television’s most-watched challenges with one of its biggest prizes. The story has so many twists and revelations that it can only be told in three parts. Siblings Charles and Diana Ingram, played by Matthew Macfadyen and Sian Clifford, respectively, get so caught in the fervor of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? that they start doing whatever they can to earn a spot on the show. Their moves become an obsession that pushes them to cut whatever corners and take whatever risks are necessary to be considered by the show’s casting department. Then, when Charles actually gets in the hot seat, their obsession pushes them to try and pull one of the biggest cons in television history by cheating their way to the million-dollar prize. Their price is steep, but the lesson is clear: Fame and fortune are drugs that can easily become addictions.

The long-running daytime game show The Price is Right is the undisputed king of the genre. It’s survived decades of network scheduling and formatting changes. It’s known to people who don’t watch game shows or even watch television. It’s broadcast worldwide and even replicated in almost 50 other countries. Even among game shows, it’s impossible to replicate because it doesn’t rely on trivia or pure luck. One viewer named Ted Slauson paid attention to the prices of prizes and started memorizing them from episode to episode, looking for patterns. When he cracked the show’s code, he tried to get on stage, but the producers always felt something was off about him. When he figured he couldn't get on the show, he claimed he passed his knowledge on to someone who could, and they made television history by becoming the first contestant in more than 9,000 episodes to get the exact price in the famed "Showcase Showdown." That’s just where this documentary starts.

Black Mirror co-creator Charlie Brooker has one of the most twisted minds in Hollywood. You’d need that to produce a show where the first episode involves a British prime minister being forced to commit an unholy act on national television to save the life of a beloved royal. A few years before he became known for one of Netflix’s most beloved series (Black Mirror), he wrote this satire of reality TV game shows by setting it right in the middle of a vicious viral outbreak that threatens to wipe out the face of humanity. The camera cuts between the action of a Big Brother-style show where contestants are so isolated by the show’s production that they have no clue of the world that’s crumbling around them. The camera cuts between the scenes the TV cameras want you to see and the tragic story unfolding around them. A zombie-esque outbreak may sound like a fantasy, but the lengths the fictional show’s producers are willing to go to maintain their sense of humanity is chilling.

The killer game show genre is pretty deep, but this 2007 movie starring Eva Mendes has the balls to take it and run with it to a place where television could easily go if we’re not careful. Mendes plays an ambitious TV producer behind a deadly reality game show where the contestant could end up with millions of dollars or a bullet in their head. It’s a literal Russian Roulette game show, and it’s played out with the same kind of uncaring reality show fare that it veers from fascinating to sickening, even if you know the show is fake.

This film critic darling of 1999 (unless you’re Joel Siegel) by There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights  director Paul Thomas Anderson is kind of a psychological anthology where the lives of different characters weave into each other in surprising and moving ways. One of the stories weaves through a cruel kids' game show called What Do Kids Know? hosted by the conniving Jimmy Gator, played by Philip Baker Hall, that pits child prodigies against each other for an audience’s entertainment. It’s the kind of show where behind the scenes, it doesn’t matter who wins the big prize or who comes in last because it retroactively affects the lives of the kids on the panel, and that’s just where it starts. This acclaimed film has a huge ensemble cast with powerful performances by Tom Cruise, Melinda Dillion, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, and John C. Reilly. It also marked the final film performance of actor Jason Robards.

This Z-grade movie from the '80s is exactly what it sounds like, but it also has a story outside of the carnage.

This cult classic from 1987 is about as black as black humor can get without just being…you know, tragedy. The cheesy game show at the center of this dark story is called “Live or Die,” in which convicted criminals compete in a Double Dare-style show with trivia questions and insane challenges for a stay of execution. If they fail to meet the challenge, they get electrocuted, hung, and even decapitated on the air for an audience of cheering weasels. An underground movement hates the show and its blow-dried jerk of a host named Chuck Toedan, played by John McCafferty, and tries to get both of them off the air permanently so we get to see some of the behind-the-scenes story arcs of a trashy program. Think of it as a Running Man if it had the sense of humor of a Naked Gun movie and no decency for human life.  

One of the films that helped Hollywood legend Jimmy Stewart achieve his status landed in theaters in 1950 about a guy who wins big on a game show. 

Bill Lawrence is just an everyday guy with a regular job and a family to support. He finally scores a break when he wins the big prize on a radio quiz show called "Sing It Again," but the prize is ridiculously random, like a lifetime supply of soup, a swimming pool, and even a pony. Then he finds out that he has to pay the taxes on all the items he's won (none of which are cash), and the lengths he goes to secure what little he has are hilarious. 

This cult classic from Kevin Smith's View-Askewniverse isn't labeled as a "game show movie" in the strictest sense, but it's a key driving point for the action in this slacker comedy. 

T.S., played by Jeremy London, plots with his best, mall-dwelling friend Brodie, played by Jason Lee, to win back his girlfriend, who ditches him to go on one of the lowest forms of televised life: the dating game show. Both score a spot as a bachelor on Truth or Date along with some poor schlub played by Clerks star Brian O'Halloran and proceed to dismantle the whole affair and some of the arch-rivals in the process. The story carries over to other Smith movies like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, where we learn that Brodie has ditched his expositional job as host of The Tonight Show to (what else?) run his own comic book shop. 

This documentary/one-person show-style film explores the life of a game show staple from the '70s and '80s in some very stark but equally hilarious terms. 

Charles Nelson Reilly is a television anomaly who was told at the beginning of his career that he could never get on television because of his sexual orientation. Without warning, he became someone who couldn't get off television thanks to his charming appearances on shows like Match Game and Hollywood Squares. The true story of his life is pretty sad, from his upbringing to his rise and fall from fame. Reilly's a gifted storyteller with a flair for dramatics that makes even the darkest stories seem absurd and entertaining. 

How big does a game show have to be that it gets its own movie? There are only two examples we can find, and this Nickelodeon film is the better option. 

The classic kids' game show in which ordinary kids brave an ancient temple of antiquated traps and secret passages got the adventure film treatment in 2016. The film raises the stakes of the game show, turning iconic challenges like "The Shrine of the Silver Monkey" into deadly traps on a quest for glory. You'll lose more than a half Pendant of Life here. It has some clever devices that make fun of the old show, like how impossible it is to put that damn shrine together and, of course, the almighty Olmec voiced by Dee Bradley Baker. 

We know that we're really stretching by including this bizarre film on the list, but it offers a rare peek into the insane mind of the man who stars in it and created its namesake. 

The Gong Show, the long-running talent competition show, always seemed to strive to be the cheapest, shoddiest game show on the dial, and it succeeded. Show creator and host Chuck Barris attempted to recapture that magic formula in film form by giving people a look at "the life" of an insane game show host. The film takes the audience through a week in Barris' fictional life, and it's so bottom of the barrel that you kind of have to admire it. It knows what it is, and it doesn't hold back on what it promises to deliver that it becomes a meta comedy where the joke is played on itself for everyone.